Walking Stick

July 2, 2019

Today I entered the woods with a purpose—to find and whittle away a new walking stick, as I had broken my previous stick last week. I walked to one of the fallen trees that was creating a bridge across the creek and sat down, pawing at branches and twigs jutting out at me from surrounding trees. I tried to find a new stick, one that was just as good as my other, but I wasn’t having very much luck. Slightly disappointed, I decided to take a new approach to my time in the woods. I threw away my plans for finding and creating a new walking stick, and decided to just experience the forest. I walked across the fallen log over the creek, and back again. Again, I walked across the log and back, several more times, enjoying the fleeting sense of adventure and risk as I scaled over the river with nothing holding me up, and feeling pride in my balance keeping me there.After, I laid on the log looking up at the leaves and the sky, listening to the creek babbling in the background. I decided to descend to the riverbed and rinse my feet in the cold water, and then I walked through the river back to where I started.

I ended up having a very pleasant day in the woods, but not because of something I planned to do or something I forced to happen. I simply felt what I wanted to do at that moment and then did it, enjoying being in the woods and enjoying living in the moment.

Lauren Nicole Geiser